Culture

W... not exactly propaganda (Film Review)

by mr.zoltanblack | October 22, 2008 at 08:51 pm

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Less then a month before a massive Presidential election, in the midst of economic collapse and financial ruin American director Oliver Stone released W, a mockumentary surrounding the life and times of sitting President George W. Bush.

Stone a qualified left-wing director (JFK, Nixon, Comandante) is certainly blessed with the gifted hands required to undertake a project of this magnitude, however as the big day approached it became evident that W. was nothing more than over zealous propaganda aimed at keeping Republicans out of both the White House and the Senate.

The megamillion-dollar question that hovers over Oliver Stone’s queasily enjoyable “W.,” his Oedipal story about the rise and fall, fall, fall of George W. Bush is: why?

Now I’m all for keeping Republicans out of the White House, it really is time for change but I must warn drooling, zombie Democrats that a new President and a filibuster proof "rubber stamp" Senate is like a runaway fright train on an unfinished track, sure the locomotive looks fast and impressive but what happens when it reaches the end of the track? The answer really is anybody’s guess.

I thought this was a film review not POV

The film was really quite impeccable, Stone delivered not as a left-leaning wing-nut but as a realist, a patriotic American and a genuine storyteller. The liberal bias as it were, was virtually none existent, Stone largely let both the Republican Party and current President W. off the hook opting for a low key "we’re all in this together" approach to placing blame for the failures of post 9/11 America. As for George Junior the films title character, Stone, like any good Democrat faded institutionalisms in favour of rehabilitation and really let the cat skate. Bush is painted as a hard-headed, often impervious, dimwit with blue-collar manners and an insatiable taste for his fathers admiration. Although the contents of the film are almost entirely the brain child of director Oliver Stone, I imagine that fantasy and reality collide on more the one occasion throughout the 131 minute picture.

Final Synopsis:

Propaganda, especially of the multi-million dollar variety should be viewed with a steady cynicism, regardless of how many pennies are or aren’t contributed by political insiders. Oliver Stone’s W. is far from propaganda. What it is, is a call to a nation that has vilified their own leader to realize the errors of their ways. Bush is stupid, pig headed and perhaps even a war monger but he’s not an anti-Christ, demigod or even the prince of frigging darkness. He’s a run of the mill American that loves baseball, Pabst Blue Ribbon and American apple pie, not really that much different from you and me.